He's reassuring and stern, eloquent and blunt, and seemingly ubiquitous: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is having what might be called a Rudy Giuliani 9/11 moment in the aftermath of Sandy's devastation of his state.

Christie dealt his usual tough talk before the storm arrived. "Don't be stupid. Get out," he said Sunday. Once Sandy wreaked havoc on the 127-mile Jersey Shore and cut power to many in the state, Christie publicly mourned the loss of the beach haunts of his youth, hugged weeping homeowners and spoke emotionally about moving on from the trauma.

"As long as sorrow does not displace resilience, then we'll be just fine." he said.

Christie sternly cast politics aside when he praised President Obama's response to the storm and toured the damage with him Wednesday.

The day before, Christie had praised Obama's storm response as "outstanding." Obama "has done a good job in the last few days for New Jersey, and he deserves my praise, and he will get it regardless of what the calendar says," Christie said on Fox News on Tuesday.

In turn, Obama told people at a Brigantine emergency shelter: "I want to just let you know that your governor is working overtime to make sure that as soon as possible everybody can get back to normal'' and afterward praised Christie's "extraordinary leadership and partnership'' with federal disaster officials.

Christie hasn't always handled disaster so well: After a Christmas 2010 snowstorm buried New Jersey, Christie declined to interrupt his vacation at Disney World to return to the state. Since the lieutenant governor was in Mexico at the time, coordinating storm response fell to the state senate president.

Obama's visit Wednesday was not his first time sharing disaster duty with the governor. The president also toured damage from Hurricane Irene with Christie last year. But that was before Christie endorsed GOP nominee Mitt Romney and became national co-chair of the Romney campaign, and before he decried "absentee leadership in the White House" as the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention. Three weeks ago, Christie campaigned for Romney at a rally in Ohio.

When a Fox News host asked if Romney might be invited to tour the state as well, Christie was brusque. "I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested," Christie said. "I've got a job to do here in New Jersey that's much bigger than presidential politics and I could care less about any of that stuff."

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss says Christie "probably is following the Giuliani model, which is for someone who in the past was thought of as quite partisan to rise to the occasion."

That doesn't mean it's deliberate. "We're all so used to deconstructing these people and assuming it's an elaborate strategy. Sometimes it's just a human being reacting to tragedy."

Even Christie, "one of the most strategic politicians we've ever seen,'' sometimes disregards political ramifications, says Benjamin Dworkin of Rider University in New Jersey. "New Jersey was hit smack hard with this particular storm. Communities are devastated. We have a $10 billion tourism industry that has to rebuild the entire Jersey shore in six months by Memorial Day. If the federal government has access to resources, dollars and manpower, gosh darn it I think any governor would be real friendly to the sitting president right now,''

The Romney campaign took the high road: "Governor Christie is just doing his job. He's governor of a state that has been hit by a very, very horrific storm," said Russ Schriefer, a senior adviser to the Romney campaign. "He's doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing as governor of New Jersey. The president is doing what he needs to do as president."

Others did not. Conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh accused Christie of helping Obama look presidential by "playing a Greek column" for him, a reference to the stage set at Obama's first convention acceptance speech. Matt Lewis of the conservative website Daily Caller said Christie shouldn't cast politics aside so fast: "While nobody should discount the seriousness of the storm — or Christie's responsibility to his constituents — electing the leader of the Free World has serious consequences, too. Is Christie really saying that the plight of his state today outweighs the seriousness of electing a president of the United States of America for four years?"

At the same time, Christie's potential rival in his re-election bid next year, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, has been directing storm response in Newark, where most of the city is without power. His tweets, always prolific, have only increased as he responds to seemingly every request for help and information.

Christie's good relationship with Obama, who has a lock on New Jersey in the presidential election next week, might help him if Booker is his opponent in 2013, which "could be a very competitive race," says Jeff Laurenti, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a liberal think tank. "Draining some of the kind of blue suspicion of him can only be good for Christie."